Minister of trade & industry, Mandisi Mpahlwa, has by government notice extended last year's 12-month deadline given to SA business to align and standardise its BEE practices with government's B-BBEE Codes of Practice. The extension is for a further six months. The original gazetted notice gave 9 February 2008 as the deadline. The purpose of the exercise was to provide a "transitional period" for business to align sector charter codes with the "broader based" government codes of good practice; the finalisation of a publicly accessible BEE information database; and the completion of the process of creating verification agencies and procedures.

In providing six-months grace, the ministry has in their recent notice further commented that after representation from various actors in the BEE process and bearing in mind that "for the effective implementation of B-BBEE all public and private institutional systems should be in place", the purpose of the extension of the transitional period by the DTI was a further opportunity window for the entire market "to convert from a narrow-based to a broader-based BEE approach."